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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday released 'Payments Vision 2025' for India aiming to provide every user with safe, secure, fast, convenient, accessible, and affordable e-payment options. During this vision period, RBI aims to achieve a more than 3 times rise in digital payment transactions. UPI system is expected to register average annualised growth of 50% during the period.
In its statement, RBI said the Payments Vision 2025 document is presented across the five anchor goalposts of Integrity, Inclusion, Innovation, Institutionalisation, and Internationalisation. Resilience to operational and security concerns would continue to be at the heart to withstand and recover from the evolving threat landscape. The integrity of payment systems shall be non-negotiable for buttressing customer confidence.
"With the change/shift in customer behaviour towards embracing digital and touchless modes of payments, partly due to the CoVID, there is a spike of 50% in mobile banking users, indicating the inclusion of first-time users into the digital fold. The challenge to make this an irreversible shift, eventually seeking convenient and tailored payment solutions, would be pursued," RBI added.
Taking into consideration the current geopolitical developments across the world, the Payments Vision 2025 document also seeks to address the potential risks arising out of any adverse situation that may arise.
RBI has proposed various initiatives under the five goalposts. And through these initiatives, RBI aims to achieve ten expected outcomes during the Vision period.
These are:
1. Volume of cheque-based payments is expected to be less than 0.25% of the total retail payments.
2. More than 3x increase in the number of digital payment transactions.
3. UPI to register average annualised growth of 50% and IMPS / NEFT growth rate of 20%.
4. Increase of payment transaction turnover vis-à-vis GDP to 8.
5. Increase in debit card transactions at PoS by 20%.
6. Debit card usage to surpass credit cards in terms of value.
7. Increase in Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) transactions by 150%.
8. Card acceptance infrastructure to increase to 250 lakh.
9. Increase of registered customer base for mobile-based transactions by 50% CAGR.
10. Reduction in Cash in Circulation (CIC) as a percentage of GDP.
RBI said, "Over 26 crore digital payment transactions are processed daily by our payment systems, of which Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system itself processes more than two-thirds."
Furthermore, RBI added that India is the world’s largest recipient of inbound remittances. Enhanced interest evinced by major countries across the globe in India’s UPI could accelerate growth in trade and commerce with partnering countries while reducing the speed and cost of remittances. With India's outbound tourists exploding, proliferation of India’s payment products abroad would provide a seamless experience to Indian travelers.
Payments Vision 2025 leverages India’s efforts and builds on the focus of the G-20 to enhance cross-border payments by addressing the four key challenges of cost, speed, access, and transparency.